Dust
by panku-peach
Summary: It has been four years since one fateful visit to Los Santos. Nora finds herself in a passive existence far away from the events of her failed vacation as well as the man that changed her life. What Nora doesn't know is that Trevor hasn't forgotten about those few days they had spent together, and that they will be reunited very soon. Trevor x OC. Rated M.
1. Those Crystal Waters

It was in the early hours of the morning, as it often is when one finds themselves in that odd state between the conscious and the unconscious where you cannot definitively say if reality is perhaps a dream and a dream is perhaps reality, that I took to morning paper in search of something that may reveal to me whether or not I had indeed woken or had simply deceived myself into believing it so.

Elliot was peacefully still in his cradle as I fingered the newspaper, almost disturbingly still for a child that found it amusing to never give me a moment of peace. I felt compelled to put down the accumulation of eye-catching articles about murder and mall openings to peer over the edge of his enclosure, quietly, almost nervously, whispering his name to make sure he was in fact still living. The gentle rise and fall of his yellow fleece cardigan gave me the solace to continue reading, filling my head with empty words that filled the heavy silence of the room that I was now so unaccustomed to.

It was summer, the time of year when children of school-going age play in the streets until nightfall when I can still hear the echoes of their laughter as I set Elliot down for his evening nap in the hopes that I may be able catch some rest. The summer was, for teachers such as myself, a time of humble hollowness in knowing that you will not feel needed until the fall. Of course I was needed, I was a mother, but still I felt humbled nonetheless for Elliot was not yet old enough to hold a conversation and I felt incredibly alone.

It was when I was seven months pregnant that my partner and I ended our relationship. I knew it had been well overdue and for the first month of solitude I remained in denial about my sadness. It wasn't as though things had ended badly between us, the separation was slow, gentle and mutual; maybe this was why I felt a lack of closure on both of our parts. It might have been preferable to announce to each other in a flash of fervour that we despised each other and simply wanted everything to be done with, but we didn't; we were still friends.

He had told me a thousand times how terrible he felt and how he wanted more than anything to be a part of our son's life, by a part I assume he was alluding to the four to eight hours he decided to give to his child every Sunday. If I would have known I would have to make small talk and cook super for the three of us, as if we were a loving family, on this day every week I would have tried to move away a long time ago. Pretending to be fine proved far worse than simply not being fine.

I was thankful for all that he did for Elliot nonetheless, the money he gave me to hire sitters and send him to daycare when I needed to be at work was more than I could have asked from him. Muffled laughter of those outside seemed to mock me, and I found myself chuckling at my own pathetic plight, knowing things could be far worse and I had simply become too self absorbed in my solitary confinement.

I hadn't had any friends for a long time now, or what seemed to me like a very long time. The company I kept in my youth was meaningless to me, a flock of people who were just as indifferent towards me as I was towards them. We had become very distant after a failed spring vacation in which I said some things that I possibly shouldn't have; nonetheless I knew all too well I had no fears of loosing them.

When I met my ex-partner about a year after graduating from university there was a time where I fell into comfortable complacency, one in which I felt I needed to fit into in order to continue to have a 'normal' existence. We met at an informal gathering of my mother's friends and acquaintances on her 60th birthday. He was the son of someone or other that knew someone or other that knew my aunt, and I suppose that to him I was the daughter of someone or other whose 60th birthday gathering it was who knew someone or other that knew his mother. There was something very alluring about the colloquial greetings and small talk that had evaded me for some time.

And that was how his mother who knew someone or other said to him how nice it might be if he found himself a nice girl, you know, like the one you were talking to at the informal gathering. How quaint. It all happened rather fast and it was all so charming and predictable the entire relationship seemed to blow past me as though I were in a wind tunnel of disinterested chatter.

I had always found it unbearable, how easily one can become attached to another, and not necessarily because they desired to do so. Life becomes a vast archive of people interlinked with places and conversations you never wished to partake in so quickly that there isn't a single way to prevent it. Before I knew it we had shared an apartment and both worked menial jobs and then decided one day that it was time to have a child.

It isn't that I regretted our relationship, it was the fact that I allowed myself to become so utterly passive. I had simply let life do as it pleased without ever interfering. And now I had Elliot, the single person in this world I had any meaningful connection to besides my mother, but she now lived about eight hours away from me. I felt absolutely alone.

Lately there had been one thing on my mind, something from years that had long since past in what felt like an entirely different lifetime; a series of events that had taken place far away from home and that permeated in my mind ever since. It was that one spring vacation, the one I had mentioned previously where I ended all ties with my so-called friends and embarked on something of a spiritual journey in the desert.

It was all so long ago and yet the memories came to me clear as crystal waters, and I felt as through I were drowning in them. That was four years ago, I was still a girl then, even though I was legally allowed to purchase alcohol, and I had indulged myself in self-absorption for a few fated days away from home. I had evidently lost all common sense in a fervour of passion for one man I hardly knew, I had abandoned everything and forgotten my own identity, though sometimes I believe it was only then that I truly found it.

Those days had passed like seconds and somehow now four years had passed and I found myself extremely nostalgic for being covered in dirt and not minding in the slightest. There was something about this day in particular that had made me so longing, maybe it was the dust particles in the air that hung silently like small pebbles in zero gravity. I suppose it must have been fate, that one word I despise with a passion, but there was no other explanation for what followed.

It was a knock at my door, three consecutive knocks, rather. Thumps on old wood at a time which I had never heard them before, making my stomach constrict and my heart race; Elliot continued to sleep peacefully. Maybe I had misheard them, maybe it was a knock at the neighbour's door, maybe there had been no knock at all and I was simply dreaming. Then there were three more, each louder and more hollow than the next, and I knew I was not mistaken.


	2. The Lion's Den

Of course I knew I was obligated as an adult to answer the persistent knocker, yet I could not bring myself to move from my place. I eyed my son, wishing I too had been asleep and might have been able to have feigned not being home. Maybe they will leave, I told myself, not wanting to be bothered with salesmen and religious fanatics alike at this hour in the morning, after all I was still in a housecoat and slippers.

Tentatively, I waited with arms hovering at my sides, carefully monitoring the sound of my own breath. And then yet again, three more knocks and I jolted from my seat; three seemed to me to be the perfect number to announce some actual importance of your visit. The floor squeaked in protest as I made my way towards the apartment door, placing my hand on the deadbolt lock as I peered into the peephole with rusted edges.

What I saw on the other side forced my heart to skip and pound pirouettes as I held the air tightly in my lungs. "J-just a minute!" I cried pathetically at the close door before making a run for my pathetically cramped bedroom.

It was he whom I least expected, the one from that one distant memory I had long since abandoned in the corners of my psyche, telling myself it could have all just been a dream, or that it might as well have been. That one person that managed to flicker about my mind at all odd hours of the day and night, like a lighter without gasoline.

Short of breath, I scrambled into a pair of jeans and a blouse, pulling my hair from its nest atop my head and attempting to make it appear as though it hadn't been sitting in a bun for the last two days. This took me all of about sixty seconds before I found myself sprinting back towards the front entrance, not knowing whether I wanted to shout or cry or barricade the door.

I suppose it had been fated somehow, by a fate which I did not believe in, this very sudden and very terrifying visit from a past I had been pondering since I woke up to a crying child at five in the morning. I quickly unlocked the three separate locks that protected my child and myself from thieves and murderers alike, simply to be allowing one into my home.

I took in a deep breath so that it would not appear as though I had been frantically preparing myself for the encounter before I twisted the door knob and heard the familiar creak of an old hinge. I swung the door open rather quickly to reveal what I most feared and desired, what lingered like ancient smoke in everything that surrounded me.

It was without a doubt Trevor Philips, I knew now that this was not some delusion of a woman who hadn't gotten a proper night's sleep in the past month. He was here, right before my very eyes in a glory of unruly hair and stubble, scars and scuffed clothing, appearing just as he had four years prior. I felt a wave of embarrassment flush through my body; I felt almost guilty for having changed.

"Hi." Was all I could seem to muster at that moment in time. Our eyes locked into a fierce gaze and I was afraid to blink or breath or move. I attempted to smile but I doubt whatever appeared on my face was anything close to it.

"Long time no see." The rasp of his voice lingered over me as a snug blanket; this was no mirage, this was real. For a moment in time I forgot about my tiny, unkempt apartment, I forgot about Elliot, my dearest son, I forgot about the bags under my eyes and the coffee on my breath, I forgot about everything that had happened since that night he drove me home and I found myself sobbing and alone in my bedroom. I was twenty-one again, drinking straight vodka in the most disgusting bar I had ever seen in my life.

"It's been four years." I stated blankly, trying to remind myself that I was indeed a twenty-five year old single mother working as a teacher for a humble salary and simply doing my best not to spiral into a vortex of insanity.

Trevor looked to his feet, "Yeah." And then more silence as I looked to my feet as well, realizing I had put on mismatched socks in the havoc of getting dressed in under a minute.

"How," I stopped myself, unsure of which of the thousands of questions I had in mind I wanted to ask him, "How did you find me?" I finally settled on this.

"People are pretty easy to find when you have the right connections." He grinned at me and I felt my chest crumble. One minute of reuniting and I was already fighting back tears of joy and anger and just about every other emotion I could think of. "Jesus, don't get all hysterical on me, I just got here! At least tell me how you've been or offer me a drink or I don't know." He chuckled.

I exhaled a sigh of relief, doing my best to relieve all of the built up tension within myself, "Okay, okay, I'm sorry." I lifted my hand to my eyes, laughing, "Can I get you a drink, your majesty?"

Trevor gave me a blunt punch on the shoulder, "Yes! That's the Nora I remember!" He exclaimed, laughing still, "How've you been?" I found myself at a loss for words. His cordial attitude was a complete shock for someone who hadn't had a real conversation in what felt like an eternity.

I had no idea where to begin so I simply decided to keep things simple and tell him, "Well, I've been alright, I suppose." Giving him a proper colloquial smile like I would the mailman.

"You _suppose?_ Come on, give me more to go on here, it's been forever! I mean you look pretty awful, what's been going on?"

I found myself laughing, sincerely this time, I hadn't laughed in such a long time and it felt strange as my chest shook. "Screw you, I just haven't been getting a lot of sleep. Not all of us have an unlimited supply of amphetamine, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. So have you been up all night working on your next best seller, my little literary scholar?" He inquired in a sickly tone, "I mean not by the looks of this apartment but everyone's gotta start somewhere."

Needless to say this was Elliot's cue to start crying. I knew my face had likely turned an unsightly shade of pink as I had not yet decided how to tell Trevor about the fact that I had a child. The look that arose on Trevor's face was absolutely priceless, though it did make me incredibly concerned for his mental stability.

"Please tell me you're a babysitter or something." His cheeks looked hot to the touch, his eyes attempting to peer into my apartment as a child would peer into the lion's enclosure at the zoo.


	3. The Fabregé Egg

I found myself bitting at my lip, watching a grown man transform into a timid child before my eyes. It was somewhat endearing, the blush and furrowed brows. I felt as though I had somehow been caught having done something I shouldn't, and without just reason. "No, no, I'm not a babysitter. Would you like to come in?" I asked tentatively.

His eyes darted back to mine, a leaky mixture of ambers and browns, and then quickly back to the ground, "I guess- I mean, if you don't mind. If this is a bad time I can come back." His voice trailed off and he cleared his throat.

"Now is fine." I attempted to give him a reassuring smile, but his gaze was still averted. I stood back and held the door so that he could enter, which he did. I examined his composure, it was the likes of someone waiting to have their appointment taken in a waiting room. "You can have a seat in the living room, it's kind of a mess but it's nothing you aren't used to."

"Mmhm, very funny."

I hurried to my bedroom to find my crying son, salivating on his clean sweater in a manner that made me grin. I picked him up and held him to my chest, giving him a peck on the forehead and asking in a whisper if he was hungry. Elliot had no reply for me except for more gurgled moans, which I took as "Mother I might be hungry. Why don't you find out?"

In the kitchen I warmed his formula under warm water and bounced him gently in my arms. In an odd way I wanted Trevor to see him, I wanted to show him what a lovely little creature I created and have him give my child the Philips seal of approval. In another way I wanted to simply return Elliot to his room and pretend I had not changed a bit since I had last seen him; evidently this was not an option, for I had changed quite a bit indeed.

I gave the bottle to my son, feeling thankful that this was in fact what he was pleading for and that he had once again graced me with silence. With my heart still thumping away in my chest and Elliot cradled to my bosom I decided it was time for me to make my grand entrance as mother-Nora. My arms trembled slightly, and every ounce of my being hoped that Trevor would be accepting.

I peered into the adjacent room, Trevor sat rigidly on the sofa with hands balled tightly together and his eyes fixated on the picture of Elliot I had hung on the wall. I turned the corner and made my way to the empty armchair across from the couch Trevor had chosen to sit on. There was a certain tightness that filled my body as I took my seat, my bundle of fleece and saliva resting happily in my arms.

"This is my son." I told him, my voice wavering. Trevor had directed his attention from the two dimensional Elliot to the real one, all of the colour that had been in his cheeks was now gone, his expression oddly blank. "His name is Elliot."

With his head cocked slightly to the left he asked slowly, "Any reason behind the name?"

"It was my grandfather's name."

"Uh-huh."

Everything grew horribly silent and the only things that could be heard throughout the apartment were a dripping faucet and Elliot's sloppy suckling. Trevor continued to gawk at my son as though he were some extraterrestrial being. Trevor took in a deep breath before mustering, "So who's the lucky guy?" finally returning my gaze.

I scoffed, "There isn't one."

"So you want me to believe this was some sort of immaculate conception? Don't fuck with me here, where's the guy?" He sported a grin but there was an edge to his voice.

"We're not together anymore. He lives across town. It was mutual, nothing to get upset over. Can we talk about something else?" I sighed, I had exhausted most of my patience concerning the details of my separation.

"Okay, okay," he raised his hands up, palms facing me, "No need to get all touchy here. All you have to do is say the word though and I'll have him here licking the dirt off your shoes alright, sugar?"

I chuckled to myself, Elliot looked up at me with eyes wide and formula dripping down his chin, the image of perfection. "That sounds fine to me." We smiled at each other for a moment as though four years had not passed.

"This is what you've been up to then, huh? Brooding and procreating and brooding some more?" Trevor laughed, "That's almost more pathetic than smoking meth and picking a fight with your lamp because you thought it looked at you funny. That's how I got this scar by the way," he pointed to the corner of his mouth, "biting a lightbulb will do that to you."

My entire body shook, not with nerves but with laughter, "Oh God I missed you so much." Some water formed in my eyes, either because of all of the laughter or all of my bottled up emotions. I wiped it away quickly, "You haven't changed a bit, you know. I mean, give or take a few light-bulb-eating induced scars."

"Yeah," he grinned, "I wish I could say the same about you." A hint of honesty in his mocking tone.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, I'm a bitter old woman now, you don't have to rub it in." I snickered, "And you, that's what you've been up to all this time, picking on some innocent lamp?"

He shrugged, "Pretty much the same old shit; being a successful business mogul, instilling terror in the hearts of others, you know how it is, and probably a lot of stuff I don't remember." He scratched at the back of his neck.

I cleaned off Elliot's mouth with the sleeve of my sweater and set his bottle down on the table, "Well I'm glad you've been better off than I am." I lifted my son and patted him on the back, Trevor eyed him carefully. "Would you like to hold him?"

The obvious distress in Trevor's expression was almost comedic, "Oh, no, no, no. No thanks, I'm good." He sputtered quickly, shaking his head, "I'm terrible with kids."

"Well, you probably are but I think I'm going to make you hold him anyways." I smirked, "I mean, you show up at my house uninvited, I treat you with such hospitality, it's the least you can do for me."

The same endearing flush arose on his face, "You're still a piece of shit, you know that?" His insults only further convinced me that his protest was over.

I sat beside him on the sofa, our arms brushed and I felt a wave of heat wash over me. He smelt like sand and sweat and it flooded my mind with warm memories. He held his arms out awkwardly as if he were about to be carrying a sack of vegetables. I placed Elliot in his awkward embrace, he was already half asleep and couldn't seem to be bothered with whose arms were his new napping-grounds anyhow.

It was a sight to see, Trevor's utterly frozen stance. He appeared to be holding his breath, as through even the slightest movement of his chest would cause my son to crumble into a heap of child-dust. I chuckled again, "Relax. He's not a Fabergé egg."

Trevor exhaled roughly, "He might as well be, okay? Just- don't pressure me." He eyed Elliot quite warily, I could see his jaw tense as he spoke.

I leaned over and adjusted his grasp in an attempt to relax the tension in his arms, "There." Our eyes meeting momentarily, I could hear my own pulse.

"You know, I came here to take you home with me." He stated bluntly. At this point in time my pulse likely stopped entirely. "I have to admit this whole baby thing is really throwing me off though."


	4. Mourning Myself

"You what?" For a moment I tried to convince myself that I hadn't heard him correctly. This was not the time for temptations, a solitary summer when I would have gladly chopped off a finger for a week's vacation. "Please tell me you're kidding."

"What? Of course not! You think I would drive ten hours to ask you how your day was? Don't flatter yourself." He laughed, "I thought that now that a couple of years had passed we could get a new perspective on things, you know? With age comes wisdom kind of thing. I didn't realize that without my strict mentorship you would go out in the world and start spawning children. I should have kept an eye on you."

"Ha! As long as it's your fault and not mine," I replied, "But in all seriousness, really? Now? I had practically convinced myself you were a figment of my imagination, or the delusion an alcohol riddled mind on a pathetic desert bound vacation. You could have been a mirage as far as I was concerned."

Trevor scoffed, holding back laughter, "A mirage? After we fucked I don't see how you could've convinced yourself of that."

I felt oddly humiliated as though my sleeping son who had yet to learn how to speak were somehow judging me. "Really, mother? You and this man? He hardly looks like a model citizen." He would say to me if he could. I had never felt more thankful for Elliot's inability to comprehend the English language.

"Okay Trevor give me my son back before you corrupt him like you did me." I smirked, plucking Elliot from Trevor's toxic embrace. I quickly returned him to his cradle, where he could slumber without being forced to endure anymore distasteful conversation, he was quite the tiny gentleman after all.

When I returned Trevor was once again examining the photograph on the wall; I took a seat beside him so that I could examine it as well. The same stillness that usually permeated throughout my apartment returned and for a few minutes we sat side by side listening to silence and the odd spark of conversation from the street outside.

I wanted more than anything to return to Sandy Shores with Trevor, but this was now an impossibility. "What made you come back for me?" I inquired, hesitantly, quietly.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I just felt like it."

"So until ten hours ago when you decided to come see me you hadn't felt like it?"

"Well, _no,_ but you know what I mean." He replied bitterly.

"I don't know if I do." I stated. Silence. Then, "I do know that for a while all I really wanted was to hop on the next bus to Los Santos and get trashed and eat cheeseburgers with you. For a while I felt like that every day until one day I decided that if I was going to be such a pathetic mess I should at least find a nice complacent lifestyle to be a pathetic mess in so that I wouldn't appear like a pathetic mess to everyone else." I had said too much, a horrible habit of someone lacking social interaction.

"Do you want me to apologize to you or something?"

"No. I guess I was just curious if you missed me at all." I inquired, my face felt hot again, I looked at the ground so that he couldn't notice me blushing.

Suddenly he laughed, inappropriately loudly, "What kind of a dumb fucking question is that? Why would I take the time out of my busy days to come all the way to this miserable town if I didn't miss you? I mean, you should feel honoured that I'm here at all."

Still unsure whether I wanted to laugh or cry I stated, "I was sure you had forgotten about me."

It happened without warning, his embrace enveloping my being. I jumped at first, no longer accustomed to human contact, but quickly sunk into the snug security of familiar arms. Having been deprived of such a warmth for what seemed to me like eternities, I felt myself melting like the heated wax of dusty candles. Tears began to well in my eyes.

"You're still a big fucking baby." He told me; I could feel the soft reverberations of his voice through his chest and shirt. I had no reply for him, it was true and a term of endearment if anything else. I sunk deeper and deeper until there was only him, the thing I had abandoned hope for, the thing that had left me with a gaping wound that maybe now could be healed.

For a couple of minutes I sobbed into his dirty t-shirt, mourning the death of myself I suppose. Maybe the past four years were what I had dreamt up instead of those few days with Trevor. Maybe it had all been a dream and I was still asleep in my dorm before midterm exams. I had spend far too much of my life pitying myself, and yet I couldn't stop the tears from coming.

Slowly the same sense of awkwardness of four years having passed returned to me; his arms felt foreign once again and I pulled away, "I'm really sorry about that." I began wiping my face with my sleeves.

"It's alright." He stated, lips curved into a grin. "Believe it of not I kind of missed your episodes of hysteria."

"That's reassuring considering I still have little to no control over myself." I smiled. "I can hardly remember the last time I cried in front of someone else though." I wanted to tell him everything; all the lost thoughts that wandered my mind at three in the morning and made me feel suffocated in my bed-sheets.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course." I replied.

"What made you decided to have a kid? I'd never thought of you as the motherly type." His eyes were bright with what I could only guess was genuine curiosity.

I paused, trying to remember that time in my relationship where I felt as though it were a good idea to have a baby. It was difficult to remember. "Now that I think about it, selfishness." I told him, staring at the photo of my son within a silver frame. "It was a point in time were I felt comfortable enough to start a family, and where not doing so would create all kinds of anxieties about becoming old and progressively more isolated from everyone and everything around me. When I think about it it makes me cringe. I'm pretty awful." I laughed abruptly with some nervousness.

Trevor nodded unsympathetically, "Well I can't say I blame you. Drugs, sex, kids, pick your poison." And then, "Any other men in your life I should know about?"

"What do you mean, like, employers, relatives, the guy who brings my mail?" I chuckled.

"Not unless you're fucking them."

"No." I scoffed, nudging him, "I don't sleep with _just anyone;_ consider yourself one of the lucky ones."

Suddenly our mouths met; to be honest I had been expecting it, and secretly wishing for it, the cracked lips and taste of cheap beer. I probably tasted like coffee and desperation.


End file.
